Dr. Smith received his B.S. in chemistry from Wake Forest University and his Ph.D. in zoology from UNC-Chapel Hill. He then went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maine, and he taught for three years at UNC-Charlotte before joining the Department of Biology at Winthrop.

At Winthrop, he has taught numerous courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, including "Principles of Biology," "Invertebrate Biology," "Electron Microscopy," "Microscopic Anatomy," "Developmental Biology," and he has supervised both graduate and undergraduate research. He chaired the committee that supervised the design and construction of Dalton Hall, and he developed the Winthrop Microscopy Facility. Smith received the Outstanding Junior Professor Award in 1994.

His research interests include the evolutionary relationships of free-living flatworms and the evolution of stem-cell systems in lower metazoans. Recently, in collaboration with colleagues at two other universities, he has begun examining the effects of beachfront development and other anthropogenic changes on the meiofauna (microscopic animals living between sand grains) at four beaches in North Carolina. His stem-cell work, supported by SC-INBRE, took him to the University of Innsbruck to learn a suite of molecular techniques applicable to his and his students’ research. Smith has a long history of involving Winthrop students in his research, and they have presented their results at the local, regional, and national levels.